2015-03-25 14:51![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
surestcompassion
surestcompassionI am probably one of the few people who don't pair off automatically! I see a lot of the Iris/Zero dynamic as being more "lead up" to an actual relationship if it's romantic at all. Iris is sweet and loving by nature, but it isn't limited to being gaga over Zero--she's just really sweet, and I think it's more homing in on something about Zero than it is a romantic attraction. She's kind, she's understanding, she's compassionate, and she's innocent. She's very different from the on-duty Hunters she's navigating for, and she shows them all kindness. Absolutely a breath of fresh air from the field.
Does this mean I won't pair off with a Zero? Ehn. Not really? I will if we get to work on it, but... not right off the bat, sorry. See, part of the thing with that ship (for me--I am 100% okay with people shipping whatever they want!) is that I don't feel like they get the chance to go from fond/friendly/affectionate on some level or other to flat-out romantic (and losing someone important to you, whatever the relationship, is still agonising--this does not lessen the blow at all, because if nothing else? Iris was a friend, probably a confidant to an extent, and someone Zero cared about and cherished in some manner; that's still close enough for him to lose it over her death and his resultant overwhelming guilt, even if it isn't "love").
Back to that "homing in" thing: Iris is hugely empathetic. She, like X, notices the little things about people. Iris approaches it with love and tenderness, open arms and a brilliant smile and sweetness. I think she does similarly with X, but it's different because of how X responds. I'm not sure, there. Something clicks differently with Zero, and it might just be because he's so combat-oriented (like her brother) while X isn't.
With Colonel, she functions as half of a whole. He's combat and tactics while she's compassion and assistance. This is why he's on-site and she's on-base. They're a single unit split in two (and I do headcanon that they have a "link" of sorts; dedicated channel that shares information readily, and likely is always active and a comfortable presence). Iris needs Colonel, and Colonel needs Iris. Her brother is the single most important person in the entirety of the world, to her. There's nothing left, if he dies, no matter what connections she's made. She's lost the other half of her being, she doesn't feel whole, and it's agonising.
"It's over"--she says this to Zero after Colonel's death, and I don't take it to mean her relationship (whatever it was) with Zero. I take it to mean her world, her life, everything about her--she has nothing. It's been ended because the other half of her systems have just been lost. She essentially snaps after her brother dies. She literally cannot function like a fully balanced individual without him. Take a computer, manage to partition it into two drives with specific sets of functions that don't overlap, assign each to different cases. They need to be connected in order to function correctly, and that's how she and Colonel work. If she'd known about it for longer, if Colonel had prepared her for it, if she'd had more time to accept it, she might have been able to salvage herself somehow and maybe even been patched to make up for his absence, but it was all too quick, too rushed, too painful. And Iris is too feeling to survive that all at once.
And I'm losing my train of thought out of exhaustion, so I'll leave it there, for now. Eventually continuing this as more thoughts happen.
Does this mean I won't pair off with a Zero? Ehn. Not really? I will if we get to work on it, but... not right off the bat, sorry. See, part of the thing with that ship (for me--I am 100% okay with people shipping whatever they want!) is that I don't feel like they get the chance to go from fond/friendly/affectionate on some level or other to flat-out romantic (and losing someone important to you, whatever the relationship, is still agonising--this does not lessen the blow at all, because if nothing else? Iris was a friend, probably a confidant to an extent, and someone Zero cared about and cherished in some manner; that's still close enough for him to lose it over her death and his resultant overwhelming guilt, even if it isn't "love").
Back to that "homing in" thing: Iris is hugely empathetic. She, like X, notices the little things about people. Iris approaches it with love and tenderness, open arms and a brilliant smile and sweetness. I think she does similarly with X, but it's different because of how X responds. I'm not sure, there. Something clicks differently with Zero, and it might just be because he's so combat-oriented (like her brother) while X isn't.
With Colonel, she functions as half of a whole. He's combat and tactics while she's compassion and assistance. This is why he's on-site and she's on-base. They're a single unit split in two (and I do headcanon that they have a "link" of sorts; dedicated channel that shares information readily, and likely is always active and a comfortable presence). Iris needs Colonel, and Colonel needs Iris. Her brother is the single most important person in the entirety of the world, to her. There's nothing left, if he dies, no matter what connections she's made. She's lost the other half of her being, she doesn't feel whole, and it's agonising.
"It's over"--she says this to Zero after Colonel's death, and I don't take it to mean her relationship (whatever it was) with Zero. I take it to mean her world, her life, everything about her--she has nothing. It's been ended because the other half of her systems have just been lost. She essentially snaps after her brother dies. She literally cannot function like a fully balanced individual without him. Take a computer, manage to partition it into two drives with specific sets of functions that don't overlap, assign each to different cases. They need to be connected in order to function correctly, and that's how she and Colonel work. If she'd known about it for longer, if Colonel had prepared her for it, if she'd had more time to accept it, she might have been able to salvage herself somehow and maybe even been patched to make up for his absence, but it was all too quick, too rushed, too painful. And Iris is too feeling to survive that all at once.
And I'm losing my train of thought out of exhaustion, so I'll leave it there, for now. Eventually continuing this as more thoughts happen.
